Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki:FAQ
General questions What is the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki? : The Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki is a free content, freely editable online encyclopedia about everything relating to the Toronto Maple Leafs' illustrious history, as well as the current status of the hockey club. Who owns the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki? : Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki is hosted by Wikia, a free wiki hosting service operated by Wikia, Inc., a for-profit organization founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wikia receives all profit from the Google AdSense advertisements on the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki. Wikia is responsible for technical issues with the site; it also sometimes provides legal advice and is our legal Designated Agent. : However, the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki's content, licensed under the GFDL, is not "owned" by anyone in the traditional sense. Anyone can reuse it elsewhere or even download the database dump and make a mirror or "fork" (not that we would be very excited in the latter case, though). When and why was the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki created? : The Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki was started by GentleBen, and with the assistance of ChristianShephard (administrator of the ''Lost'' Wikia) in October 2008 as a project that would provide a more complete coverage of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club than Wikipedia was allowed to by its notability policies. Our goal is to keep more up-to-date statistical information on all current players, as a large database such as Wikipedia can have difficulties updating statistical information for the hundreds of active NHL players. A smaller wiki is also easier to manage, customize and verify (when it comes to accuracy). Who is responsible for the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki content? : You are! In fact, you can edit this very FAQ! However, note that since the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki is an unofficial, community-driven project, edited by hundreds of people unfamiliar with each other, we cannot possibly guarantee (and explicitly disclaim) any degree of accuracy and validity, although we do strive for both accuracy and verifiability; this means that everyone should be able to verify the facts mentioned in every article. : You can find who contributed to a particular article by looking at its edit history. What keeps the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki from being destroyed? : Every Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki article contains an edit history (accessible from the "history" tab by default), which records all edits to the article since it was created. In case someone makes a bad edit (intentionally or not) by vandalizing the article or inserting non-canon information, anyone can revert (restore) the article to an earlier, better revision. How can I contact the project? : The Community Portal is the general place to ask questions about the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki or give feedback, although if it by its very nature only concerns the administrators, try contacting the Administrators instead through their talk pages. Legal questions Is the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki copyrighted? : Yes, all contributions are copyrighted by the people who made them. This means that if you edit an article, you hold copyright for the edits you made, but not for edits made by other people contributing to the same article. : The GNU Free Documentation License, which we use, leverages the legal institute of copyright to ensure that everyone will have the right to freely access, modify and redistribute licensed content, no matter what. Therefore, do not contribute if you do not want your edits to be in turn mercilessly edited by others. Can I use the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki content on my site/elsewhere? : Yes! However, this only applies to the text, licensed under the GFDL, and a select few free images. Most of our images are copyrighted by the NHL or the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club and used under the fair use clause for identification purposes, and using them for other purposes or in countries where fair use conditions do not apply may be illegal. : If you use the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki's articles elsewhere, all you are legally required to do (by the license) is to add a copyright notice saying that the article is copyrighted and licensed under the GFDL, and a link to the original Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki article. You can freely modify and redistribute the material, provided that you license your modifications under the GFDL as well. You cannot license it on other conditions or put it in the public domain, nor can you claim copyright for content you did not write yourself (everyone only holds copyright to the contributions they themselves made). Can I use the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki content on another wiki? :Yes, if the said wiki is itself licensed under the GFDL. This includes all of Wikia (with the exception of Memory Alpha and Uncyclopedia, which are sister projects licensed under Creative Commons licenses) and most Wikimedia Foundation projects, including Wikipedia. In this case, the aforementioned copyright notice goes to the talk page of the said article; the restrictions still apply. Can I use content from other sites on Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki? :No. By default, every work is copyrighted and the author holds exclusive rights to it, unless they explicitly release all or some of them. You can insert GFDL or public domain text into articles verbatim, but not anything else. Technical questions What wiki software does the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki use? : The Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki (and the rest of Wikia) uses MediaWiki, the same software as Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wikia also uses some third-party extensions, which are available to all hosted wikis. The exact details can be found at . Do I have to register? : While registration is optional, it is strongly recommended. You can view and edit pages as an anonymous user, but registration hides your IP address and gives you the ability to upload files, move (rename) pages, and edit so-called semi-protected pages (after a few days). : Most importantly, registration gives you an identity and makes you a full-fledged member of the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki community. After you register and make your first edit, another user will usually greet you on your talk page and give links to some useful information pages. Registration is the first step in earning reputation and respect, and who knows, maybe one day you will be nominated for an administrative position! What are namespaces? : Namespaces are large "storages" that group pages according to their function. Placing a page in a namespace causes the MediaWiki software to treat it in a special way. For example, this page is in the "Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki" namespace, according to its prefix (Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki:FAQ). Every namespace except Special (whose pages are generated by scripts on the fly, rather than being stored in the database) has an appropriate talk namespace, unless it is itself a talk namespace. For example, the talk page for the article named Air Canada Centre (located in the default namespace, without any prefix) resides at Talk:Air Canada Centre. Only the Wikia staff can add or remove namespaces or special pages. Neither regular users nor administrators can do that. Editing questions : See also Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki:Editing FAQ What is the difference between red, blue and light blue links? : Blue links point to existing pages (like Main Page), red links point to nonexistent pages (like MediaWiki:Nonexistent), and light blue links are either external or interwiki links: in short, links that are supposed to point outside the Toronto Maple Leafs Wiki. Where can I discuss pages? : Each page has a built-in discussion (talk) page, which can be accessed via the "discussion" tab. While discussing articles, please limit your posts to the article content, not the article subject. For example, the Talk:Maple Leaf Gardens page should not be used to find out who thinks that the Maple Leaf Gardens was a far better arena than the current home of the Leafs, but discussions whether (and how) it should be expanded, whether a certain image should be replaced or a section reworded are perfectly acceptable. For discussions about the roster and history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, refer to discussion boards, like the mapleleafs.nhl.com boards. Somebody reverted my edits, what should I do? : Generally, not revert to your version in turn. This can start a revert war (also known as edit war), which is seen as disruptive because it prevents other contributors from improving the same article. Instead, question yourself whether the revert was justified, look at the edit history for the reason given, and try to settle the case on the talk page. What is a minor edit? : A minor edit is an edit that it is so non-noteworthy that users monitoring the article can usually skip it. Examples are spelling and grammar corrections, corrections of formatting and template usage. Addition and omission of content, as well as factual corrections, are not minor edits and should not be marked as such. : If you accidentally marked a non-minor edit as a minor one, make a dummy edit (an edit that affects the source wikitext but not the output, like changing one space to two or vice versa), mark it as non-minor, and explain the problem. What is a semi-protected page? : Semi-protected pages are pages that can only be edited by registered users that have been registered for 4 days or longer. It is done to prevent pages from being vandalized by anonymous or very new users. Like full protection, it is only used in extreme cases. If full protection is a last resort measure, semi-protection can be thought of a "penultimate resort". Community/political questions Can I become an administrator? : Administrators hold much power, but also have much responsibility. There are a number of prerequisites for becoming an administrator, and whether or not a nomination succeeds largely depends on what other users think of you. Category:Wiki Administration